1. Reflect on your current assessment practices. How have you been determining what students understand and what they are able to do?
I have been determining what my students can do using a vareity of assessments that test a variety of skill and comprehension levels. For example, on tests and quizes I always include some questions that test low level knowledge such as multiple choice, matching, or true/false questions. I also always include, short answer questions that require students to use higher level thinking skills such as critical thinking. I also use homework, labs, papers and projects to evaluate my students learning. Students are always provided the rubric they will be graded on, if applicable. Students are also always able to redo a grade to reach a 70 if they did not get there on the first try.
2. Describe the concept(s) that you are trying to assess in these assignments. Include a link to the appropriate GSE(s) on RIScienceTeachers. Be sure to include in your description your definition, examples of what it is, why students have difficulty with this concept, and why it is important that you teach this topic
The concepts I am trying to assess in this particular assignment are related the the GSE LS1(9-12)-2 which states:
Assessment target: Explain or justify with evidence how the alteration of the DNA sequence may produce new gene combinations that make little difference, enhance capabilities, or can be harmful to the organism (e.g., selective breeding, genetic engineering, mutations).
Students demonstrate an understanding of the molecular basis for heredity by …
2a describing the DNA structure and relating the DNA sequence to the genetic code
2b explaining how DNA may be altered and how this affects genes/heredity (e.g. substitution, insertion, or deletion).
2c describing how DNA contains the code for the production of specific proteins.
This assignment required students to go beyond just describing and showing they understand genetic engineering and use their critical thinking skills to evaluate genetic engineering in our society and form their own opinion on this controversal topic.
- fogleman Do you consider the socio-ethical issues related to genetic engineering to be included in this GSE?
3. (and 7) Describe an informal assessment that you selected, modified, or designed to address this concept. Summarize the instructions you gave your students and Include a link to the informal assessment here as well.
An informal assessment I used to address this concept was a worksheet that the students needed to fill out as they watched the movie GATTACA. I instructed the students to make sure they filled in the top part of the worksheet during the movie, and took a try and answering the analysis questions for homework. The beginning of the worksheet was simply to keep students on track and following the movie while the questions sought to get the students started thinking about the consequences of genetic engineering in order to prepare them for and led into the formal assessment.
4. (and 8) Create a formal assessment. Describe this assessment, including concepts, types of items, and how it was assessed. Include a link to a copy of the assessment here as well.
This assessment was a two paragraph essay, for a general level biology class, many of whom have IEP's for writing. Students we're given 45 minutes one day to make an outline and begin a first draft and a second, full hour and a half class in the computer lab, to type a final draft. The paper required students to identify pros and cons of genetic engineering, using specific examples from either their notes or the moive GATTACA. Then students were required to form and argue their own poistion on the topic. Students were assessed using a rubric that they were given when they recieved the prompt. Students also had the oportunity to work with their reading/writing special educator, whom I had asked to join us for this assignment since I knew many of these students needed extra support when it comes to writing.
Kerry, you should review the number of typos/misspellings in the above paragraph. Many of these are underlined in red in my editor (a la firefox) You need to develop the habit of proofreading your work so that you appear in print as the competent teacher you are. - fogleman
5. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your formal assessment or link it here.
Students were evaluated based on a rubric that is attached to the writing prompt linked above.
6. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your informal assessment or link it here. This description should include the assessment's features, how it addresses different depths of knowledge, as well as an explanation of how it addresses a scientific practice related to inquiry.
This informal assessment was graded as a homework assignment and students could earn a total of 5 points. For the beginning of the worksheet I simply checked to make sure students knew who every character in the movie was since they change names a couple of times throughout the movie and it can be confusing. For the questions section of this assessment students earned points for trying every question and being on the right track but did not technically have to get every question right since they were challening. This addesses different depths of knowledge because the beginning required only recall skills while the questions required critical thinking and analysis skills. It also addressed scientific practices related to inquiry because students needed to communicate and defend a scientifc argument.
7. & 8. - Already addressed above.
9. For your informal assessment, upload scans of the work of three or four students. The work of each student should be on a different page. At the bottom of each students' page, you should describe the level of student understanding, e.g. high, average, or low, and describe how this is indicated in their answers. An example of how to do this is here. Note: Remember to name the pages you create carefully, e.g. "Smith S10 - High Performing" instead of "High-Performing."
NEED TO UPLOAD Missing. - fogleman 10. For you formal assessment, describe how you think it addressed the concepts you were trying to assess? How did you modify the assessment to address learning differences or special needs?
This assessment addressed the concepts I was trying to assess because it required students to think critical about genetic engineering. I modified this assessment to address learning differences and special needs in a few different ways. First, I had used the assignment previously with a College Prep Biology class and reduced the reqiurements that my General Biology students needed to meet. I also layed out step by step what students needed to do, such as start with an outline, include two pros with examples, two cons with examples, etc. I did not lay out the assignment as structured for my CP students. General Bio students were also given more time to complete the assignment, as well as provided time with a reading/writing special educator to help them.
Nice job scaffolding the assignment. Do you think this level of student could be ask to begin their paragraphs with topic sentences? - fogleman
III. Analysis / Reflection
11. Use both the informal and formal assessments to describe what you learned about what your students understand about these concepts. Use specific examples from both the informal and formal assessment to illustrate your points. What can your students do now that they could not before, and what do they still need to learn?
From both the informal and formal assessment I learned that my students have a good idea about the pros and cons of genetic engineering but are confused by the more technical aspects of genetic engineering such as how it actually works. For example, many students refered to genetic engineering as a procedure that is done to people almost like a surgry or something. For example, one student stated "Many parents want their children to have the genetic procedure done". Students also seemd to get confused about what genetic engineering can do now and what it could possibly be able to do in the future. For example, in class we talked about how pituitary dwarfism can be treated with gene therapy and how scientists are hoping to be able to cure diseases such as cancer, AIDS, and heart diseases through genetic engineering in the future. Students often said something along the lines of this student who stated " Genetic engineering helps treat cancer, heart diseases, and aids." Although students seemed to get mixed up with the more technical aspects of genetic engineering, they seemed to get the main point of this assignment, that it is a controversal topic in our society and has some positive and some negative aspects. For example, one student wrote "Genetic engineering has exciting possibilities but could have devastating results." Another student wrote "While no one can ignore the possitive aspects of Genetic Engineering, I have really big concerns." Therefore, I believe that I accomplished educating students on the pros and cons of this topic but in the future could spend more time making sure students have a better idea of what genetic engineering can actually do right now and what it could possibly do in the future, along with some more vocabulary related to the technical aspects of genetic engineering.
How important do you think the "technical aspects" of genetic engineering to understanding the movie? To addressing the GSEs? - fogleman
12. OMIT
13. For your formal assessment only, select one student characteristic, e.g. ability, gender, age, etc) and compare the relative performance of each group. Hint: Use box and whiskers plots to compare the two groups. What do you conclude from this comparison? Why?
After comparing the boys and girls in my classes and how they did on this assignment I learned that my female students had more descriptive and passionate paragraphs on the personal opinion section of this essay. I think this may be because the girls were more emotionally invested in the moive GATTACA, as many of them cried at the ending. I also think that girls are more likely to think about their future children and what it would mean if they could pick certain aspects of their child's appearance and/or personalility. It came across that because the girls were more passionate, they wrote better essays. However, after doing this comparison I learned that just because a males essay may not be as emotional as a girls does not mean they did not understand the paper and I will need to be careful about this in the future. It is easy to get excited when a student is passionate about a topic and neglect that they might not understand the topic as well as their passion makes it seem they do.
14. Describe any ways in which you involved students in self-assessment. How did you communicate what you learned from your informal and formal assessments to your students? What did they do with this information?
I involved students in self-assessment because they had to re-read their first drafts and cross check them with the rubric to make sure they were hiting everything they needed to talk about before typing up a final draft. This seemed to really help my students because many of them realized they were missing critical elements of the paper and were then able to go back and improve their paper before handing it in. I think the students grades would have been much lower had I not had them self-assess their own work.
15: Most Important: Compare your objectives for student learning (both in terms of science concepts and practices) to the student learning you observed. What did you learn about your teaching based on the student performances? What will you do differently next time? Why would you make these changes? What, if anything, will you do to improve the assessment instruments?
I believe that my assessment, the writing prompt, was well written and structured. However, I think I may have gotten so caught up and focused on getting students to understand both sides of the genetic engineering argument that I neglected going into detail about the technial aspects of genetic engineering. Next time I did this lesson I would add more to my notes to make sure students actually understand what genetic engineering is before moving on to the pros and cons of it. I would make these changes because while it is important to understand both sides of this scientific controversy in our society, what good would this be if the student could not articulate what genetic engineering actually is?
The fact that your students were engaged and passionate about the issue is a great start. Now that you know their probable reaction, will you know how to teach the "technical" aspects so that they are better equipped to make the connections in the future. - fogleman
19/24. Your insights regarding students' motivation and technical understanding were important for learning from assessment. The missing examples of student work make it difficult to see how you assess students' understandings. - fogleman
Name:
I. Assignment Description/Requirements
See attached file to view the description of the assignment as well as the rubric that students recieved.
.
II. Preparation / Development
1. Reflect on your current assessment practices. How have you been determining what students understand and what they are able to do?
I have been determining what my students can do using a vareity of assessments that test a variety of skill and comprehension levels. For example, on tests and quizes I always include some questions that test low level knowledge such as multiple choice, matching, or true/false questions. I also always include, short answer questions that require students to use higher level thinking skills such as critical thinking. I also use homework, labs, papers and projects to evaluate my students learning. Students are always provided the rubric they will be graded on, if applicable. Students are also always able to redo a grade to reach a 70 if they did not get there on the first try.
Nice list of assessment approaches. -
2. Describe the concept(s) that you are trying to assess in these assignments. Include a link to the appropriate GSE(s) on RIScienceTeachers. Be sure to include in your description your definition, examples of what it is, why students have difficulty with this concept, and why it is important that you teach this topic
The concepts I am trying to assess in this particular assignment are related the the GSE LS1(9-12)-2 which states:
Assessment target: Explain or justify with evidence how the alteration of the DNA sequence may produce new gene combinations that make little difference, enhance capabilities, or can be harmful to the organism (e.g., selective breeding, genetic engineering, mutations).
Students demonstrate an understanding of the molecular basis for heredity by …
A break down of this GSE can be found at http://riscienceteachers.wikispaces.com/LS1+%289-11%29+-+2.
This assignment required students to go beyond just describing and showing they understand genetic engineering and use their critical thinking skills to evaluate genetic engineering in our society and form their own opinion on this controversal topic.
-
3. (and 7) Describe an informal assessment that you selected, modified, or designed to address this concept. Summarize the instructions you gave your students and Include a link to the informal assessment here as well.
An informal assessment I used to address this concept was a worksheet that the students needed to fill out as they watched the movie GATTACA. I instructed the students to make sure they filled in the top part of the worksheet during the movie, and took a try and answering the analysis questions for homework. The beginning of the worksheet was simply to keep students on track and following the movie while the questions sought to get the students started thinking about the consequences of genetic engineering in order to prepare them for and led into the formal assessment.
4. (and 8) Create a formal assessment. Describe this assessment, including concepts, types of items, and how it was assessed. Include a link to a copy of the assessment here as well.
This assessment was a two paragraph essay, for a general level biology class, many of whom have IEP's for writing. Students we're given 45 minutes one day to make an outline and begin a first draft and a second, full hour and a half class in the computer lab, to type a final draft. The paper required students to identify pros and cons of genetic engineering, using specific examples from either their notes or the moive GATTACA. Then students were required to form and argue their own poistion on the topic. Students were assessed using a rubric that they were given when they recieved the prompt. Students also had the oportunity to work with their reading/writing special educator, whom I had asked to join us for this assignment since I knew many of these students needed extra support when it comes to writing.
Kerry, you should review the number of typos/misspellings in the above paragraph. Many of these are underlined in red in my editor (a la firefox) You need to develop the habit of proofreading your work so that you appear in print as the competent teacher you are. -
5. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your formal assessment or link it here.
Students were evaluated based on a rubric that is attached to the writing prompt linked above.
6. Develop the evaluation criteria (or key) for your informal assessment or link it here. This description should include the assessment's features, how it addresses different depths of knowledge, as well as an explanation of how it addresses a scientific practice related to inquiry.
This informal assessment was graded as a homework assignment and students could earn a total of 5 points. For the beginning of the worksheet I simply checked to make sure students knew who every character in the movie was since they change names a couple of times throughout the movie and it can be confusing. For the questions section of this assessment students earned points for trying every question and being on the right track but did not technically have to get every question right since they were challening. This addesses different depths of knowledge because the beginning required only recall skills while the questions required critical thinking and analysis skills. It also addressed scientific practices related to inquiry because students needed to communicate and defend a scientifc argument.
7. & 8. - Already addressed above.
9. For your informal assessment, upload scans of the work of three or four students. The work of each student should be on a different page. At the bottom of each students' page, you should describe the level of student understanding, e.g. high, average, or low, and describe how this is indicated in their answers. An example of how to do this is here. Note: Remember to name the pages you create carefully, e.g. "Smith S10 - High Performing" instead of "High-Performing."
NEED TO UPLOAD
Missing. -
10. For you formal assessment, describe how you think it addressed the concepts you were trying to assess? How did you modify the assessment to address learning differences or special needs?
This assessment addressed the concepts I was trying to assess because it required students to think critical about genetic engineering. I modified this assessment to address learning differences and special needs in a few different ways. First, I had used the assignment previously with a College Prep Biology class and reduced the reqiurements that my General Biology students needed to meet. I also layed out step by step what students needed to do, such as start with an outline, include two pros with examples, two cons with examples, etc. I did not lay out the assignment as structured for my CP students. General Bio students were also given more time to complete the assignment, as well as provided time with a reading/writing special educator to help them.
Nice job scaffolding the assignment. Do you think this level of student could be ask to begin their paragraphs with topic sentences? -
III. Analysis / Reflection
11. Use both the informal and formal assessments to describe what you learned about what your students understand about these concepts. Use specific examples from both the informal and formal assessment to illustrate your points. What can your students do now that they could not before, and what do they still need to learn?
From both the informal and formal assessment I learned that my students have a good idea about the pros and cons of genetic engineering but are confused by the more technical aspects of genetic engineering such as how it actually works. For example, many students refered to genetic engineering as a procedure that is done to people almost like a surgry or something. For example, one student stated "Many parents want their children to have the genetic procedure done". Students also seemd to get confused about what genetic engineering can do now and what it could possibly be able to do in the future. For example, in class we talked about how pituitary dwarfism can be treated with gene therapy and how scientists are hoping to be able to cure diseases such as cancer, AIDS, and heart diseases through genetic engineering in the future. Students often said something along the lines of this student who stated " Genetic engineering helps treat cancer, heart diseases, and aids." Although students seemed to get mixed up with the more technical aspects of genetic engineering, they seemed to get the main point of this assignment, that it is a controversal topic in our society and has some positive and some negative aspects. For example, one student wrote "Genetic engineering has exciting possibilities but could have devastating results." Another student wrote "While no one can ignore the possitive aspects of Genetic Engineering, I have really big concerns." Therefore, I believe that I accomplished educating students on the pros and cons of this topic but in the future could spend more time making sure students have a better idea of what genetic engineering can actually do right now and what it could possibly do in the future, along with some more vocabulary related to the technical aspects of genetic engineering.
How important do you think the "technical aspects" of genetic engineering to understanding the movie? To addressing the GSEs? -
12. OMIT
13. For your formal assessment only, select one student characteristic, e.g. ability, gender, age, etc) and compare the relative performance of each group. Hint: Use box and whiskers plots to compare the two groups. What do you conclude from this comparison? Why?
After comparing the boys and girls in my classes and how they did on this assignment I learned that my female students had more descriptive and passionate paragraphs on the personal opinion section of this essay. I think this may be because the girls were more emotionally invested in the moive GATTACA, as many of them cried at the ending. I also think that girls are more likely to think about their future children and what it would mean if they could pick certain aspects of their child's appearance and/or personalility. It came across that because the girls were more passionate, they wrote better essays. However, after doing this comparison I learned that just because a males essay may not be as emotional as a girls does not mean they did not understand the paper and I will need to be careful about this in the future. It is easy to get excited when a student is passionate about a topic and neglect that they might not understand the topic as well as their passion makes it seem they do.
14. Describe any ways in which you involved students in self-assessment. How did you communicate what you learned from your informal and formal assessments to your students? What did they do with this information?
I involved students in self-assessment because they had to re-read their first drafts and cross check them with the rubric to make sure they were hiting everything they needed to talk about before typing up a final draft. This seemed to really help my students because many of them realized they were missing critical elements of the paper and were then able to go back and improve their paper before handing it in. I think the students grades would have been much lower had I not had them self-assess their own work.
15: Most Important: Compare your objectives for student learning (both in terms of science concepts and practices) to the student learning you observed. What did you learn about your teaching based on the student performances? What will you do differently next time? Why would you make these changes? What, if anything, will you do to improve the assessment instruments?
I believe that my assessment, the writing prompt, was well written and structured. However, I think I may have gotten so caught up and focused on getting students to understand both sides of the genetic engineering argument that I neglected going into detail about the technial aspects of genetic engineering. Next time I did this lesson I would add more to my notes to make sure students actually understand what genetic engineering is before moving on to the pros and cons of it. I would make these changes because while it is important to understand both sides of this scientific controversy in our society, what good would this be if the student could not articulate what genetic engineering actually is?
The fact that your students were engaged and passionate about the issue is a great start. Now that you know their probable reaction, will you know how to teach the "technical" aspects so that they are better equipped to make the connections in the future. -
19/24. Your insights regarding students' motivation and technical understanding were important for learning from assessment. The missing examples of student work make it difficult to see how you assess students' understandings. -